Scroll through your Twitter account. Tweeting doesn’t carry the same pressures as other types of writing. They’re often spontaneous, unfiltered thoughts.

Tweets have your voice, your experiences, your opinions. And something about the content made you want to put it in writing and publish it.

Not all that glitters is gold, though, right?

So let those zingers and one-liners be. If it fit into 140 characters neatly, leave it alone. Or pin it to your profile page. But don’t drag it out and drag us through a post about something that should have been left on your timeline. If you have to force it, let it be.

Otherwise, grab that tweet and spin it like Rumpelstiltskin.

Illustration by Paul Zelinksky

My Sunday thoughts in 200 words or less.

Do you ever look through your Twitter (or Facebook) timeline? Do you grab ideas/words/stories from there?

Just back and forth conversations on social media. You don’t stress or edit or perfect them, you just talk. Then… You say something that gives you an idea for a blog post or leads to an essay or story. 😊

Your tweets are quite brilliant to begin with. The poetry folks on Twitter spend a bit more time crafting tweets than most, I assume. And yours are beautiful – begging to be turned into lengthier poems. #mast ❤️

`Not all that glitters is gold´… But that blue birdie could be coining some gems… at least in the ethereal shapes of potential ideas. 😊
A very interesting approach here… thanks for sharing, Aquileana ⭐ .-

Haha…you crack me up Sarah! ‘Otherwise, grab that tweet and spin it like Rumpelstiltskin.’ I love the way you write, I really do. And this just goes to prove that I STILL have no bloody idea what I’m doing over in Twitter land. Say what? It’s for spinning short, snappy zingers? And I thought it was just for posting links to ‘stuff’. I’m so useless at this Twitter stuff…but you’re teaching me the way, thank you! ❤ And now I'm going to let down my long, hair…

Thanks, Sherri! ❤ Okay, well, you're fairly new to Twitter and it's a confusing place and they're always changing stuff. Pfft! So, yes, snappy zingers. Well, just in conversation you could find some funny thing you said that leads to an idea. But, also, there are numerous writing prompts on there that could serve as inspiration (like the one up there in my post about the milk container). I love you, Sherri, but you are mixing up your fairy tales. Ooh! You should write a flash! "When Rapunzel Met Rumpelstiltskin".